Perpetual Motion, the Folly of the Ages

By H. Winfield Secor, E.E.

Untold Numbers of Inventors and Even Scientists Have in Years Past, and at the Present Time, Devoted a Vast Amount of
Study to the Perfection of a Perpetual Motion Machine - The Problem Remains Unsolved, However, to This Day

Perpetual motion is the will-o'-the wisp
that has occupied many brilliant
minds in the centuries past, as well
as at the present time, and, while we of
this age are not entitled, perhaps, to say
definitely that all such ideas are absolute
folly and baseless
from a strictly scientific
and physical
standpoint, it is pretty
thoroughly understood
by all well schooled
engineers
and inventors of today
that there is practically
no such thing
as perpetual motion,
in the general sense
of the word.

Perpetual
motion is a
very misleading term
as applied in various
senses, and in treating
such a subject as
this the confining
limits of the points
involved should be
thoroughly understood.

Some theorists
and would-be scientists
will propose such
ideas or phenomena
as the light of the
sun, ocean waves,
rotation of the earth,
and what not, as the
embodiment of perpetual
motion. However,
the hundreds,
and undoubtedly
thousands, of more or
less well - trained
minds that have endeavored
to solve this
much-talked-of problem
of perpetual motions
have invariably,
had in mind some
mechanical, electrical
or other machine
which, when once
started in motion,
would continue producing
this motion
indefinitely, or to the
end of time. So far
no machine or allied
device of any description
has been perfected
or produced,
but several quite remarkable
phenomena
taking place in nature
will be mentioned
herein which approach
this much desired
goal of inventors
past and
present.

Many extremely amusing situations
occurred between scientists and would-be
inventors of perpetual motion machines,
and a few of these instances are here cited
which may be of more than passing interest
to those who have been or who are now
thinking along this line.

One of these stories is related of how an
inventor of a certain machine betook himself
to a mechanical engineer for advice on
same. The machine in question was supposed
to" multiply power and the inventor
of this device maintained that if one horsepower
of energy was applied to a pulley on
one end of the mechanism, then 20 horsepower
could be taken from a second pulley
placed on the other end of the combination.
The engineer asked the inventor if
he believed in perpetual motion, and be re
plied, "Certainly not."
"Well," said the engineer, "if you use
one of the 20 horsepower you claim to produce,
you will have 19 horsepower left for
other work, will you not?"
"Yes," replied the inventor.

"Then take one horsepower from the pulley
which will deliver 20 horsepower and
drive the other end of the machine requiring
but one horsepower, as you mention,
and you will then have perpetual motion!"
It is said that the inventor departed forthwith
without even unrolling his drawings.
Again, there is nothing wrong with trying
to tap any of nature's reservoirs, but
what is wrong is when we try to make 2
plus 2 equal 5 mechanically. It is a consoling
fact, indeed,
that we should know,
as we do know, that
an accountant's balance
sheet is always
possible for any
mechanical operation.

On the one side we
have the money paid
in, that is the horsepower
available
while on the other
side we have the
money paid out; that
is the work done and
the energy wasted;
the two sides must
balance one with the
other eventually. For
a given horsepower
put into a certain device
or machine we
are entitled to look
for a strict accounting"
of energy expended
by this machine.

The final results
must show so
much work done plus
so much wasted,
avoidably or unavoidably,
and the work
done plus the work
wasted must in every
case equal the work
originally put in. Also
there must be no pretense
made or assumed
that any
amount of the energy
has mysteriously disappeared - in other
words, there must be
no allegation that the
books will not balance.

The inventors of
so - called perpetual
motion machines
have, from time im-memorial,
evinced a
partial or total disregard
of the basic
laws of physics and
mechanics. The term
"friction," for one
thing, seems to have
found no place at all
in their vocabulary
or knowledge of science.

If it had, indeed
there would
never have been patents
issued and whole volumes written covering
their early research work or, for that
matter, the present-day research on such
impossible appliances or machines as we feel
called upon to name them in the light of
our present-day knowledge of the aforementioned
branches of science.

When one of these perpetual motion inventors
can show us a machine that will
operate absolutely without friction and in
direct defiance of the laws of gravity, and,
considering these terms in all their
multifarious and multitudinous phases, in which
we are compelled to apply them to all man made
devices and apparatus, then you will
probably see such a machine, which will
keep in operation forever.

It will probably bring out the point at issue
more clearly if we consider a number
of the ingenious ways and methods called
into play by the various investigators of
this phenomena and consider carefully the
deficiencies in same and the reasons therefor.

Referring to Fig. 1, there is observed a
hydrostatic device which is supposed to keep
on operating forever, and this was invented
at an early date. It has been promulgated
and adopted over and over again by many
sanguine inventors, and it was proposed at
one time by the Abbe de la Roque, of
France, in 1686. The device comprises a
glass vessel of the form shown in the illustration,
and, as perceived, the section B is
made much smaller than the portion A.
When water is placed in the larger chamber
A it is, on account of its greater volume
and weight, supposed to easily counterbalance
the small column of water in the
portion B, and hence the liquid would be
forced up through the restricted tube section
beyond B, and thus discharged back
into the bowl A. This is supposed to keep
up until the water is evaporated. Needless
to say, the inventor, or rather inventors of
this apparently remarkable device were confounded when an actual trial demonstrated
beyond the shadow of a doubt that the device
would not, under any conditions, operate
on account of the fact that the liquid
maintained an equal level in the chambers
A and B in accordance with the well known
laws of hydrostatics. Simply explained,
the air pressure per unit surface
area remains the same, or, roughly, 15
pounds per square inch. Gravity aids in establishing
equal levels in the two chambers
or tubes. Reference to any book on physics
will serve to clear up this matter thoroughly.

In this direction there was another form
of hydrostatic perpetual motion device,
known as Hero's Fountain. The sketch at
Fig. 2 shows the arrangement of this device,
which comprises an upper chamber,
A, open to the atmosphere, which chamber
is filled with water. The water also passed
from this chamber down through a tube or
pipe into a lower receptacle D. The pressure
was supposed to be transmitted from
the water in this way so as to compress the
air in chamber B, and thus react on a second
water basin C, and thus the liquid was
supposed to be forced out of the nozzle at
the top of the fountain, as the illustration
shows. If such a device would work, needless
to say the problem of perpetual motion
would have been solved long ago, for
this idea date back hundreds of years. (If
the upper basin is larger than the inner one,
then the device will operate for a while.)

Electricity, owing to the fact that it has
always been but very vaguely understood,
even by some of those skilled to a high
degree in the art, has caused a great many
students of this branch of science to burn
a vast amount of midnight oil in trying to
perfect a device employing electricity in
some form or other that would keep on the
"go" forever.

Among amateur electricians undoubtedly
one of the standard forms of this "pipe
dream" is that shown at Fig. 3. This necessitates
the use of a motor and dynamo
connected together in some way or other
so that after once starting same from some
external source of energy the dynamo will
generate the current for driving the motor,
and, considering that they are finally interconnected,
the motor will in turn drive the
dynamo. Thus they will keep on working
forever, ad infinitum. To the thorough
electrical student this proposed scheme is,
of course, absolutely fallacious and ridiculous.

In accordance with the well-known
law covering the conservation of energy,
which states that matter or energy can never
be made or destroyed, and also that it
is manifestly impossible, at least in our
age, to construct a machine that will operate
at 100 per cent, efficiency, without any
waste of energy whatsoever, it will be seen
that it is utterly hopeless to think for one
moment that such a combination can be
made to operate for even a few seconds, let
alone months and years, as some inventors
fondly think.

As a matter of fact, and to thoroughly
bring out the defaults of this arrangement,
authentic data is here cited covering the
actual performance of such a motor-generator
set.

Let us consider that the motor used to
drive the dynamo by direct coupling, which
is the most efficient method of mechanically
connecting the machine, is rated at five
horsepower. This considers the five horsepower
rating of the motor mechanically at
the driving pulley or shaft. From careful
tests made on such machines the relation of
the input of the electrical energy to the
output of mechanical energy is practically
80 per cent, for this size unit. Hence, if
the motor is rated at live mechanical horsepower
( in accordance with the rated efficiency),
then the electrical input on the motor
must be 6% horsepower. Considering
the aforementioned efficiency loss, the one
horsepower is consumed in bearings, windage,
copper and iron losses in the motor.

There is also some over-all coupling loss in
such motor generator sets, and the dynamos
are never rated, in properly designed
outfits, to correspond with the horsepower
output of the motor. If we allow 10 per
cent, difference between the mechanical
horsepower developed by the motor and the
dynamo input, we will then have allowable
for this latter value 4.5 mechanical horsepower.

Considering, now, that the dynamo
has an efficiency of 80 per cent. ( for the
conversion of mechanical into electrical energy),
then it will have an output of 4.5
horsepower times 80 per cent , or 3.6 horsepower.
Recapitulating, it is now evident
that the gross over-all efficiency of the motor
generator set is 3.0 divided by 6.25, or
57.6 per cent.

If the dream of this perpetual motion
scheme is to be realized, it will have to be
under conditions that will allow of no loss
whatsoever, even to the smallest degree;
and, of course, as every well-informed electrician
knows, this is out of the question.

Some of the inventors and re-inventors of
this scheme have even claimed that lamps
can be lighted from the dynamo., as well as
driving the motor from the same source of
energy, and our sketch, Fig. 3, shows this
proposed innovation.

There have been thousands of
mechanical devices devised to realize the perpetual
motion goal, but none of them have proved
successful in actual tests. It may be of interest
to state that the United States Patent
Office experienced no end of trouble with
this class of patents and proposed patents
some years back, but the annoyance became
so pronounced that finally a rule was passed
that a "model" of such proposed patents
would have to be submitted. Needless to
say that this has put a quietus on the perpetual
motion dreamer, as there has never
yet been submitted to the Patent Office a
machine which would keep moving for any
appreciable length of time, for the several
mechanical and physical reasons well known
to any student of the science.

For the benefit of those who have not
studied the problem from a mechanical
viewpoint it may be worth while to look
into the cold facts of "friction." In practically
all, or nearly all, of the devices of
various types intended to operate forever,
there has always been a very appreciable
amount of friction to be overcome and
which fact was apparently totally ignored
in designing the machine. The friction
might be very small indeed in the machine,
but it is there invariably, and cannot be
gotten rid of by any method known to us.

Some have tried to realize the long-sought-for
goal of 100 per cent, efficiency by utilizing
devices employing a number of gears —from two to three, and sometimes a dozen
or more. As machine designers well know,
there is not, nor never has been, a gear
train of no matter how few gears that
would transmit mechanical energy in a reduced
or intensified form (as regards velocity)
without some loss of energy in
friction and tooth slippage in the gear action.

The efficiency of a small gear train
may vary from 80 to 86 per cent, or more
for medium velocities at the pitch line of
the gear. Any machine design or mechanical
engineer's handbook will give this data
in lucid form, and it has been compiled
from many observations and extremely
careful tests conducted in laboratories of
the leading universities and colleges, which
are thoroughly equipped for this work.

Any moving - objects or parts of a
machine must of necessity be supported on
spindles or shafts resting in bearings. These
bearings are bound to exert some frictional
effect, and the following formula gives the
loss in foot-pounds per minute for such
horizontal bearings. This rule states that
the loss in foot-pounds per minute is equivalent
to .2618 times the coefficient of friction,
times the weight on the journal in
pounds, times the diameter of the shaft in
inches, multiplied by the revolutions per
minute at which the shaft rotates. The
value of the coefficient of friction varies,
of course, but it has a value of approximately
.008 for a cast-iron shaft running in
a steel box or sleeve when the pressure is
100 pounds per square inch, and, considering
that sperm oil is used as the lubricant.

Many people who have a slight knowledge
of physics have promulgated designs
for perpetual motion employing liquids,
somewhat after the fashion shown in Figs.
2 and 3, and some of these machines have
appeared to be very ingenious on first inspection.
However, friction is also present
here, as liquid cannot flow through a pipe
or nozzle without encountering a reactional
or frictional effect.

A number of electrical machines intended
to produce perpetual motion have been devised
from time to time, and Fig. 4 depicts
a design which might appeal to the amateur
electrician or inventor. This instrument is
of the electromagnetic type, and A represents
a frictional electrical machine. At B
there is a crank connected to a pivoted
armature situated in front of the electromagnet
C. The frictional electric machine
is started and so magnetizes the ( temporary
) magnet, which pulls the armature G
toward C; the circuit is broken at E. and
thus the magnet loses its power, temporarily.

The spring J now pulls the armature
back against the contact screw E, and thus
the magnet is energized once more. Thus
the action is supposed to keep up forever.
The explanation previously given in connection
with the motor-generator set illustrated
in Fig. 3 will help to elucidate the
fallacy here involved. Besides a static machine
cannot operate an electromagnet.
Another inventor devised a magnetic
wheel machine, pictured at Fig. 5. This
wonderful machine constituted a rotating
wheel having oppositely disposed magnetic
segments, such as those made of iron (A),
while a powerful steel magnet acted on
these wheel segments in turn. Attached to
the wheel shaft was a crank motion which
alternately and in proper sequence raised
and lowered a magnetic shield (B) in front
of the permanent magnet poles, so that as
soon as the iron segment approached the
magnet the shield would be interposed between
them, and the momentum of the
wheel would carry it past this point, etc.

This action was repeated ad infinitum, as
will be apparent. The most remarkable
claim made by the inventor of this particular
device was that the magnetic shield
was to be composed of brass, coated with a
"chemical and mineral substance" which
would make it an insulator of magnetism.
( As a matter of fact there has never been
found a substance to insulate magnetism,
except iron.) Again, the wheel C attached
to the shaft of the device turns in a trough
of water, as perceived, and it is supposed
to serve in equalizing the motion, thus
keeping the machine from running away
with itself and committing self-destruction!

One of the "simplest," apparently, solutions
of the perpetual motion problem and
devised at an early date involved the use of
some form of revolving wheel made up
with spiral paths in same, in which paths
a number of metal weights or
halls could travel hack and
forth as the wheel rotated,
and thus change their center
of gravity. This would eventually
overbalance the wheel
proper, it was claimed, so that
they would produce a greater
force on one side of the wheel
(in a descending sense) than
that offered by the balls being
raised on the other side
of the wheel. This is shown
very clearly in Fig. 6. Moreover,
the friction and windage
of the rotating member proper,
with respect to the bearings,
etc., have to be taken
into account, even though it is
placed in a vacuum, as gravity
will cause the wheel to exert
weight on the points of suspension
which would, of
course, be the bearings. Disregarding
these facts altogether,
it can be seen that although
it looks quite certain
that the balls falling out along
the spiral grooves of the
wheel at the right will surely
tend to, exert a greater force
"downward" in a turning effort
on the wheel than the
counteracting "lift" force required
to raise the balls as
they move backward to the
center of the wheel] such is
not true.

It will be found upon critical
inspection of all such
wheels that, although some of
the weights or balls are more
distant from the center of the
wheel than others, yet there
will always he a proportionately
smaller number of them
at that part of the wheel on
which they exert the greatest
power, so that these exactly
counterbalance each other and
hence the wheel will stand
still. Hundreds of similar designs
employing liquids, such
as water, mercury, etc., bellows,
weighted collapsible leaves
and what not, have been
devised and thought out to
bring about the much-desired
function of "perpetual motion,"
but without avail.

Of later years and in view
of the marvelous characteristics
of radium, for instance,
which was supposed at one
time to give off energy forever,
there have been many
pseudo-scientists who in
speaking of perpetual motion,
simply mention the word,
Radium! as if they had solved
the whole question finally and
completely. The latest research
work on radium has
brought out the fact that it
eventually loses its power to
give forth energy in the form
of electrons at the end of
about 2,500 years. To some of
us no doubt this would seem
near enough to the goal of the
perpetual motion dreamer, and
a radium clock would seem to
put any of the devices of this
ilk invented in past years
away in the shade. A radium
clock that undoubtedly will
work all right has been devised
by Prof. Struts. This
may be said, without a doubt,
to he one of the nearest
approaches to a practical perpetual motion
device ever invented. It comprises a glass
bulb, as perceived in Fig. 7, inclosing a
gold leaf electroscope, some radium salts
and a metal wire which has one end connected
to the earth.

The action is as follows:
The emanation of the radium in
the form of electrons shot forth at high
velocity, charges the leaves, which diverge
slightly, until one of them touches the
wire at A. As this terminal is connected
with the ground, it carries off the electrical
charge, leaving the gold leaf discharged,
but which are then recharged from
the electrons continuously given off by the
radium. This charge is again carried off
to earth, and so on, ad lib. No doubt a
suitable electrical contact of delicate mechanical
construction could be arranged so
that every time the leaf touched the wire
A it would cause a secondary electrical circuit
to operate some electromagnetic device
connected to a standard clock mechanism.

Also it might be possible to construct a
sufficiently sensitive mechanical arrangement
inside the bulb, which would be actuated
by the movement of the gold leaves as
aforementioned.

The life of such a clock would be 2.500
years, if our present knowledge of radium
and its characteristics are correct. Thus we
see that, in so far as practical results, or
in fact any results worth mentioning arc
concerned, the problem of perpetual motion
is practically as far from solution as it
ever was since the dawn of creation.

Wherever you find practical engineers
and scientists at work in the laboratory or
in the field, you will always find some practical
form of energy being utilized, either
from waterfalls, some form of gas or coal,
mineral oils or windmills, etc. There are a
number of mighty forces as yet unharnessed
in nature, which so far have baffled
the many master minds trying to solve their
mysteries; notable among these there is the
almost unbelievable force available in the
ocean waves, which perpetually wash our
shores; the energy in the sun's rays, which
has been used practically in some apparatus
devised in the past few years, but not to
any extent worth mentioning; the efficient
use of wind energy, and the direct generation
of power from coal, which at present
entails 90 to 98 per cent, loss in boilers, engines
and piping. But let the perpetual
motion specialists dream on, for he who
never dreams never accomplishes, someone
has said.